


The Abyss Gazes Also

by mrapollo



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: 1800's fic!, Amnesia: The Dark Descent!AU, Erik is ahead of the game, Horror, M/M, graphic gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-28
Updated: 2012-08-28
Packaged: 2017-11-13 01:50:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/498109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrapollo/pseuds/mrapollo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles awakens on the floor of a castle with only the memory of his name to cling to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Abyss Gazes Also

**Author's Note:**

> As this is an Amnesia: The Dark Descent AU expect horror elements and graphic gore/disturbing scenarios (which apparently I love to write).
> 
> Chapter titles will be taken directly from the Amnesia death loading screens

Charles awoke with a start, entire body twitching awake violently. He squeezed his eyes shut and let out a feeble groan, barely enough to echo off the cold cobblestone he was resting on. He wasn’t in pain, but a feeling of unnerve was shooting across his skin. It was uncomfortable and playing on the edge of self-imagined pain, like the expectation of injury when falling down a flight of stairs. The discomfort forced Charles to his feet. He brought himself to a standing position, stretching his arms out in front of him and wincing at the crack of his elbows. 

Charles sucked in a long, deep breath and took in his surroundings.

It was day, if the sun shining through the large, arched windows was any indication, and from the architecture of the place he appeared to be lost in a castle. He was in the middle of a great hall with two wooden doors on each side on him, a wall of two windows to the back of him, and a door that was nearly floor to ceiling in its enormity. Above the door, taking up the small space between the ceiling and the top of the door’s arch, was a crest. On the walls were tapestries, deep red and boasting the same Germanic crest. Two chandeliers of candles lit the room and shook above him at random, as if prodded by gusts of invisible wind. 

_Probably a family crest,_ Charles thought absentmindedly, still completely unaware of how he had come upon the hall, when he had, and why he was there in the first place. More distressingly, he hadn’t the slightest clue why he had woken up on the floor. 

Had he passed out? 

He brought a hand to his head and smoothed back his hair, as if it would help him clear his mind. No, he would remember that.

He took a step forward, towards the door with the crest, and pain overtook his vision. He tried to stay balanced as a ache firing from his head blanketed his body in agony. His hands were so tightly fisted in his hair he barely had time to catch himself as he fell to the floor and blacked out again. 

\---

It was night.

Charles awoke slowly, a deep throbbing pulsating across his skull. It felt like the rapping of a door knocker without a backing, smacking against the wood of the door and threatening to break through at any moment. He groaned loudly, opening his eyes as the noise was reverberated around the chamber.

What if he wasn’t alone?

He panicked, shooting to his feet and bearing the pain that showed no signs of leaving. There were five options. Five doors with god-knows-what behind them. Charles steeled himself, threading a hand in his mussed hair in a weak attempt to stop the constant pain. 

It was decided; Charles would go left. As he made to step forward, he was reminded of his previous efforts. Carefully, he let his foot fall a small distance away from him and braced for pain. When there was none, he let himself continue, stopping between the middle of the two doors. Neither were marked, no crest or indication of what lie behind them. He threw caution and clear thinking to the wind and choose the right. As his fingers wrapped around the polished handle, he bit his lip in anticipation.

He pulled the handle to him and was met with nothing. The door was locked, or, perhaps, jammed. Charles furrowed his brow in frustration and tried the door again. It clanged loudly as he pulled and pushed on it, but did not forfeit its solid place in the doorway. 

_All right,_ he thought, _left it is then._

Having less reservations and the distractions of the current conundrum to numb the pain, he tried the door on the left. It echoed the same clang and refused to yield. Charles sighed, frustrated. The too-quiet hall was beginning to make him claustrophobic. All he could hear was the throbbing in his head and anticipation on his breath as he made his way to the right wall, trying the door on the left. 

To Charles’ elation, it opened. He smiled a little, accepting the small happening as a triumph. Peering inside, Charles’ smile dropped. It was pitch black. The darkness was unnatural, encroaching on everything and shutting out all light. The light of the chandeliers seemed to bounce away from the darkness, fearful to touch it. Had Charles a match to light, he wouldn’t have been able to see his own fingers. It sent a shiver up Charles’ spine. He closed the door and took a step back.

Perhaps the door on the right would be more accommodating. Thoroughly frightened now, Charles opened the door with reservation. He leaned in for a glimpse at the inside, rather than swinging it open with abandon as he had with the other door, and hissed under his breath as his head found new ways to inflict pain on him.

There was light in this one. Charles let out his held breath in relief and opened the door wide.

A corridor stretched before him, torches lining the walls in odd abundance, and turned sharply to the right and into the shadows. There was only one door, guarded by two unlit torches. Charles gave one last look at the large, much more welcoming hall before entering the corridor and shutting the door politely behind him.

As he stepped forward, hand still smoothing down his hair to fight the pain, there was a crunch below his foot. Charles tensed, afraid to look down. He slowly brought his gaze to the floor and was met with a trail of bright rose petals, leading to the door like a lover’s trail. It was odd, disconcerting, and the only thing Charles had to go off of. He followed the trail, unable to place what it was about the petals that made them so strangely disturbing. 

_Probably the pain,_ he thought to himself. He reached the door and grasped the handle, praying for light in the chamber. There was a wet, slick feeling under his fingers and he shot his hand back, horrified to find red painted on his palm. The crushed remains of a petal, molded to the handle, fell to the floor. Charles sighed brokenly, voice quivering.  
As he brushed the crushed bits of petal from his hand, it occurred to him why the petals were so disturbing. They were a perfect replication of the color of blood. Charles looked back over the trail, now imagining it made up of little stains of solid blood. He shuddered again, grabbing the handle and throwing the door open.

The room was sparsely decorated. A large, open and empty wardrobe stood in the corner and a tapestry accented the adjoining wall, the same style as the others in the main hall. In the middle of the room was an expensive, yet filthy, rug. A candle on the desk lit the back of the room while candelabras lit the doorway, resting on wooden tables. 

Charles closed the door behind him, again finding it difficult to break a polite habit, and crossed the rug to the desk. The chair had been thrown down, along with several papers. Joining them on the floor were the remains of a glass container. Charles steered clear of it, not wanting to incur more injury. There was a note pinned to the table by a tiny, golden statue of a military man, sword brandished and ready for attack. Charles set the soldier aside and picked up the note.

_19th of August, 1839_

_As you are reading this you are probably finding yourself confronted with a myriad of questions. Please do not attempt to answer them all, Charles. I know you’ll want to, but I’ve found that some things simply cannot be answered. I do not have much time and there is so much you need to know, so I will be brief._

_You are our last chance at redemption. I am already lost in the guilt of my actions, but you are free of it. There is a man who has greatly wronged many and you are the only one who may defeat him. His name is Sebastian Shaw and I pray that if you are to remember one thing, it be him. Go to the Inner Sanctum, find Shaw, and kill him. I know you will not believe me when I say this, but you have it in you to do this. Do not let yourself be led astray by ideals, but please do not forget them. Do not become me._

_It may appear cowardly, but I am drinking this for the both of us. I must forget so you may flourish._

_Before I go, I have for you a warning and a request. There is a shadow chasing you, Charles. It cannot be destroyed or delayed any longer. You must out run it._

_My request may not seem important to you, but it means the world to me._

_Do not forget Erik._

_Your former self,_

_Charles_

Charles read the note through a dozen times, growing more confused at every reading. 

None of it made sense. 

Why would he choose to forget himself? How much of himself had he forgotten? Who was Sebastian Shaw and, more importantly, what on Earth was “the shadow”?

Was this all a sick joke?

Charles needed to cool his head.

Between the allegedly unanswerable questions and the insufferable throbbing, growing louder as he in turn grew more frustrated at his ignorance, it was impossible. He righted the chair and seated himself, elbows propped on the table and hand brushing against his hair line as they ran over his face and rubbed at his tired eyes.

Problems could be solved, no matter how seemingly insurmountable. 

_Let’s just take this apart, bit by bit,_ Charles encouraged himself. 

He took the note in his hands and re-read the first line. 

_Well, the letter is at least clear on one point. I do have a “myriad of questions”,_ he droned on, mocking his own voice and briefly pondering if he sounded that pretentious all of the time.

He moved onto the second paragraph of the note. 

_Guilt of my actions._

What exactly had he done that was so awful it warranted a complete wipe of memory?

Charles’ eyes trailed to the soldier, gleaming in the sparse light of the candle, its drawn sword threatening violence.

_Kill him._

He read and re-read the words, unable to believe he had penned them. He was not a man of violence, this he was sure of.

But perhaps his former self was? It was a distressing thought, that he had no knowledge of himself or his previous actions. Forget did not absolve a man of sins, and the forgotten Charles seemed to realize this.

_Find Shaw, and kill him._

The throbbing of his head skyrocketed to white flashes of pain at the reading of the man’s name again. Unsure if it was simply coincidence, Charles read the name a third time. He brought a hand to his head to cool the burning. 

“Shaw,” he said aloud, only managing half the name before crying out in pain.

A noise from behind the door answered his cries. Charles shoved a hand over his mouth, slowly turning around in his chair to keep watch on the door. It was silent but for the unnatural wind.

Another noise, this time louder, and Charles jumped in his seat.

It sounded distantly human, like a groan an older man might make.

The groan grew louder, closer. A mortal sound became an unearthly, guttural grunt. It was close enough that Charles could hear the thing’s heavy foot steps, stomping down and shaking the door in its frame.

For minutes, there was nothing. No wind enticing candle-flames to dance, no bugs skittering across the filthy carpet. No horrid noise.

Wood flew at Charles face as strips of the door were demolished. The creature banged at the door, with tool or body Charles couldn’t be sure, and threatened to smash through it. Reacting quickly, he shot up from the chair and weighed his options.

The room was barren, with no exits and no windows.

He could hide under the desk, which would end in him being possible murdered, or lock himself in the wardrobe.

Which would also end in him being possibly murdered.

A shadow of the creature’s limb bursting through the center of the entrance spurred Charles into action and he nearly leap across the room, fumbling into the wardrobe. He shut the door, melted into the back panelling, and waited. He was enveloped in darkness, a lamb for slaughter. There was a loud crash as the door was forced from its frame and left broken on the floor. Charles squeezed his hand over his mouth again, fingernails digging into the soft flesh of his cheek. 

Footsteps echoed in the room and an animalistic growling coupled with the stench of decayed corpses fought with Charles’ sanity.

Helpless and faced with death from an unimaginable creature of the pit, Charles had only one thing on his mind:

Who was Erik?


End file.
